Thursday, November 09, 2017

Three Carrier Strike Groups in the Sea of Japan at the same time? That's a huge amount of firepower for a bluff!

via USNI News

Three U.S. carrier strike groups will drill together – in the first tri-carrier operations in a decade of the Korean peninsula in the Sea of Japan, several sources confirmed to USNI News on Wednesday.

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), along with their escorts and air wings, are set to meet off the coast of Korea for four days of exercises later this week.

“These three carriers are not there specifically targeting North Korea. … This is a routine demonstration of our commitment to the region,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said last week.

Everyone is missing the real story here. People are getting locked in on 3 carriers operating together. That's the wrong way to look at it. This is one of those times when you MUST be clear and specific.

We have 3 Carrier Strike Groups operating together.

Check out the pic below that shows the composition of an "average" carrier strike group.

This is the standard. We don't know if these groups have been enhanced/reinforced or augmented.

Do you get the force of connection here?

The US Navy has been complaining about maintenance and getting its rotation back in order and with this one move they're throwing that out the window for at least a year if not longer.

I don't know what's going on but I definitely don't buy that this is a simple training move. They're messing up too many people, are potentially taking too many ships off the line (in the future...for maintenance) for this to be just training.

The Combatant Commander requested this and I imagine we'll all find out why so enough.

Oh and my prediction stands. A limited strike on N. Korea with no boots on the ground (except for maybe a suicidal Special Ops raid to decapitate the little fat boy....SOCOM needs to learn to say no!) will occur sometime this winter. I'm figuring late Nov all the way to early March.